GEORGE III MAHOGANY AND HAREWOOD PARQUETRY AND MARQUETRY MARBLE TOPPED BOMBE COMMODE
IN THE MANNER OF PIERRE LANGLOIS, MID 18TH CENTURY
the serpentine green marble top with a moulded edge above four long graduated drawers with original rococo mounts, the trellis parquetry panels centred by floral marquetry with foliate gilt metal pulls and escutcheons, above a shaped apron, flanked by angles with trailing acanthus gilt bronze mounts headed by female masks, the side panels with trellis parquetry centred by a cartouche with urn marquetry, all raised on French bracket feet with gilt bronze acanthus mounts
142cm wide, 89cm high, 69cm deep
Note: The present commode belongs to a small group of similar pieces that appear to have been made by foreign cabinet-makers working in England during the 1760s and 1770s. The most fully documented of these is the Frenchman Pierre Langlois (fl. 1759-1781) although other emigre cabinet makers such as Christopher Fuhrlogh, Johann Christian Linning and George Haupt were also producing furniture in the same oeuvre at this time. See Lucy Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, pp. 168-170, for a discussion on a group of related commodes in the Continental manner. The relationship between cabinet-makers and marquetry cutters at this period is somewhat unclear, and it is certainly possible that an individual's special skills were used by a number of cabinet-makers at the same time. As Christopher Gilbert notes in The Life and Works of Thomas Chippendale 'It has never been adequately explained how London cabinet-makers who, over the previous fifty years, had become accustomed to producing furniture which was either richly carved or faced with naturally figured veneers, managed quite suddenly to recruit accomplished marquetry workers to satsify the demand for elaborately inlaid pieces in the newly fashionable Neo-Classical taste'.